The Healer by Virginia Boecker Read Free Book Online

was involved with was somehow involved with the curse. Nicholas is being quiet about it. He doesn’t speculate much, you know. He just says Veda will tell us when it’s time.” A pause. “If you don’t think she’s a witch, then what do you think?”
    I turn to face her.
    “I think we got the wrong girl,” I say.
    “I thought that, too, at first,” Fifer says. “But Veda—”
    “I know,” I say. “She’s never wrong. It’s just, this girl…”
    I walk back to the bed. Look down at her. At this silly girl who had one bad night where she got too drunk, too careless, and is now near death because of it. When she wakes up—if she wakes up—she’s going to be frightened, confused, and that’s without our telling her she’s the only person who can help the most wanted man in the country.
    “I think she’s a mistake.”

8
    Slowly, Elizabeth recovers.
    It’s been two weeks since she arrived. It took one week before I was confident she wouldn’t die, another before I was confident she’d wake up. George and I took turns watching her at night in case she relapsed. But now that she’s stable, it’s just George. I figure when she finally opens her eyes, it would be nice for her to see a familiar face.
    As for when that will happen, it’s anyone’s guess. Father, George, and Fifer ask me several times a day. Nicholas never asks, but it’s not because he doesn’t want to know. I give them the same answer anyway: when she’s ready. There’s nothing I can do to hurry her along.
    It should be soon. The signs are there: Her temperature is normal, she can breathe clearly. She’s tolerating baths well enough that I’ve sent Fifer to her room to tend to her hair. It’s still a terrible tangled mess, untouched since the day she got here. Fifer wanted to cut it off, but I refused. It’s too close to what they did to my mother and sister; too close to what they almost did to her. The idea of it makes me sick.
    I’m still keeping her sedated with poppy, but I’ve reduced the dose enough to allow her to wake up while still remaining calm. I can’t risk another outburst, especially if the person she chooses to attack is Nicholas. Not to mention that poppy can cause addiction, a problem I’d like to avoid.
    Time is running out, though. We need to get this girl to the seer. Veda can see only once a month, and that day is fast approaching. While Nicholas is stable for now, he’s weak. I’ve managed to lessen the severity of his symptoms, using minute doses of poison to slow the spread of them, but there’s only so much I can do. If Elizabeth doesn’t make it to Veda’s next week, I don’t think Nicholas can last another month.
    I’m hunched over the table in my bedroom—which Fifer now calls the laboratory—making Nicholas’s tonic of angelica, horehound, saffron, thistle, and belladonna, plus basil to improve flavor, when the door bursts open.
    “Well, she’s cleaned up,” Fifer says by way of greeting. The sleeves of her black tunic are pushed past her elbows, her face is flushed, and even her hair looks angry: red and wild and out of control.
    “It couldn’t have been that bad.” I set a flask on a stand over the flame, drop in a few crushed basil leaves and a measure of water, and begin to stir.
    “Say you,” Fifer replies. She flops down in a chair at the table and sighs dramatically. “It took me nearly two hours to comb out her hair. You’d think she’d never seen a brush before in her life.”
    “She was in jail for a week,” I point out. “I doubt her hair was high on her list of priorities.”
    “Hmph.”
    “Besides the state of her hair,” I say, “what did she look like?”
    “Are you asking me what she looked like in the bathtub? Naked?” Fifer smirks.
    “That’s not what I mean.” I turn away from her and fiddle with the flame burning under the alembic. It doesn’t really need to be lowered, but it gives me something to do.
    Fifer snorts. “She’s fine. Still too